Ian Riccaboni on 102.3 FM The Sports Hub

Last week, I was guest of L.A. and Nick on 102.3 FM the SportsHub. I was certainly more bearish than bullish on the Phillies’ prospects of competing for the NL East, even though it was just a few hours removed from the Phils’ sweep of the Padres.

The audio was provided today and we talk about possible trades, when the Phillies should know they are in or out of the race, and if anyone is ready to step in on the farm. Please take a listen!

4 Comments

Good interview. I thinking knocking Phillies’ front office for their “failure” with their No. 1 picks in recent years is being overly critical. All No. 1’s are not equal: when year after year you’re the top dog in the standings – or near the top – you find yourself picking in the high 20’s – low 30’s when your turn comes around. All the low-hanging fruit is gone by then, and it would take a GM genius or fortune teller to come up with bona fide stars that late in the draft.

As to our problems with young OFs … maybe this guy is the next Puig or Cespedes?
espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11112005/baseball-player-yasmani-tomas-defects-cuba

What are we waiting for? Guys like this can be major-league ready and don’t cost draft picks. I don’t know if this Tomas guy is worth chasing after – but rummaging after Cuban ballplayer-defectors is surely a good way to go. When Puig and Cespedes were on the market, were we so freakin’ talent-laden in the OF or anywhere else that we weren’t even in the running for these guys? That’s where I think the front office is sadly asleep.

Knocking the faillures of draft picks is being too critical, but so also might be knocking a team for missing some of the Cuban players. For one thing, no one really knows how much legwork may have been done or how much money offered to certain Cubans. Secondly, no one knows whether the players themselves had their own reasons, such as wanting to be close to the coast or prefering a certain cities real estate market or schools, for signing where they did. I have to point out that there were 28 teams besides the Phils who didn’t sign Puig, and 28 teams besides the Phils who didn’t sign Cespedes, and many of those teams were just as thin in outfield talent and probably just as rich in funds.

George, I certainly agree that there can be any number of reasons for Cuban ballplayers to make the decisions they do. For one thing, Florida, So. California, and Texas – warm weather locales with large Hispanic populations – might be an immediate draw for them. I don’t have a problem with the Phillies front office if they made a legitimate attempt for these guys, but it didn’t work out. Yes, there were all those other teams besides the Phils who didn’t sign Cespedes – but how many of them gave it a shot? My point is, I think the Phils were one of the clubs that didn’t even try – I believe so because had they tried, I think we’d have known about it by now.

It’s going to be a long haul for Phillies fans if the only way we get younger and better, from the Gulf Coast League on up, is by one draft after another after another. If there are unconventional methods to short-circuit the process, we should pursue them. The “Cuban Option” is one of them. It’s a plus that we signed Gonzalez, and we’ll see how that works out. Beyond the fact that, hopefully, he turns out to be a capable arm, his presence would make it that much easier to sign Cuban No. 2, whoever that might be, since that fellow would already have someone in red pinstripes that he could easily relate to. He could be told, for example, how Philly is so much like Havana.